Daily Bruin wins 2017 Best Men’s Volleyball Online Coverage of Year

It’s a three-peat for the Daily Bruin as it once again earned one of the nation’s top college men’s volleyball media awards.

Off the Block announced Wednesday that the Daily Bruin for the third consecutive year was the recipient of the Off the Block Best Men’s Volleyball Online Coverage of the Year.

The Best Men’s Volleyball Coverage of the Year award recognizes the nation’s top college student-newspaper in college men’s volleyball coverage. The award winner and four finalists are determined based on Off the Block’s season-long analysis of the online coverage for NCAA men’s volleyball on college newspaper websites.

Newspapers were judged based on their online articles about men’s volleyball throughout the season, both in terms of quality and quantity. Also factored into this award was a newspaper’s use of online media platforms such as podcasts, online videos, photo galleries and social media for men’s volleyball coverage.

The Daily Bruin is the on-campus student-newspaper at UCLA. Volleyball reporters Kelsey Angus and Melissa Zhang along with assistant sports editor Grant Sugimura and editor-in-chief Tanner Walters spearheaded the newspaper’s coverage of the nationally-ranked Bruins.

The student-journalists produced more than 40 online articles about UCLA during the regular season that included personality profiles of several starters and in-depth game stories offering insights matches that went beyond a box score. Two of the newspaper’s top stories were a profile from Zhang about UCLA middle attacker Mitch Stahl adjusting to UCLA after living in rural Pennsylvania and a feature by Angus about middle attacker Daenan Gyimah and his success off the court composing music.

Eight times this season the Daily Bruin had at least one article make the Off the Block top college men’s volleyball stories of the week list.

Along with the written coverage of the team, the Daily Bruin for the second straight year produced a weekly podcast to discuss the latest news and offer analysis about the Bruins.

The Ball State Daily News (Ball State University), The Daily Collegian (Penn State University), The Lantern (Ohio State University) and The Springfield Student (Springfield College) were selected as finalists for the 2017 Off the Block Best Men’s Volleyball Online Coverage of the Year.

This is the sevneth year of the Off the Block Best Men’s Volleyball Online Coverage of the Year award.

The Daily Collegian won the inaugural award in 2011 before repeating in 2013 and 2014. The Ball State Daily News won the award in 2012, while the Daily Bruin previously earned the honor in 2015 and 2016.

Off the Block is a national award winning website that launched in 2011 and is the nation’s leader in college men’s volleyball coverage. Off the Block each season presents a variety of media awards recognizing outstanding performances in college men’s volleyball journalism.